


Summer Sun

by roebling



Category: Bandom, Panic At The Disco
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, M/M, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-08-01
Updated: 2007-08-01
Packaged: 2017-10-23 03:12:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,618
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/245665
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/roebling/pseuds/roebling
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>On a day off in Atlantic City, Brendon insists they go to the beach.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Summer Sun

**Author's Note:**

> (Originally posted in uh, 2007?)

The wind is off the water; the air is cool and damp, and it smells strongly of salt and rot. Brendon's seen the ocean before. His parents took him to visit cousins in northern California one time, and they lived close enough to the coast that one afternoon they'd driven over to the shore. Brendon's sisters and his younger cousins had climbed on the wet rocks and tried to capture the small grey crabs that scuttled from tide pool to tide pool, and Brendon had watched the surf pound the rocky coast.

This is nothing like that had been. Although the air is cool, Brendon leans over the balcony railing and the morning sun is already hot on his skin. He'll get a sunburn today if he doesn't smear himself with Coppertone. The beaches are wide and white, and already shimmering a little in the heat. Brendon bounces on his toes. It's only seven. He looks down the beach and the other casinos are still shrouded in morning mist. It's a strange place. It's a really strange place, with these great glass towers crouching on the beach and the lights and the low flatness of it all, and everywhere the smell and the sound of the salt water.

Brendon doesn't know what the other guys thought, but hey, it's Atlantic City. It's America's Playground. It's like a life size Monopoly board! None of them have ever been before but there are casinos and so it's got to be a little bit like home. Secretly he thinks they all thought it would be a little bit like home, even if just in the most superficial way, even if just because of the spectacle and the absurdity, but really, so far it's been nothing like home at all.

After all, if they were in Vegas, they would be staying at home, or maybe all of them staying at Spencer's parents' house, sleeping on the couch or on a leaky air mattress, waking up to Spencer's mom cooking breakfast, maybe driving down to the strip at night or to the mall, but not staying in a hotel, not staying on the twentieth floor of a gleaming new hotel with queen-size beds and great balconies that overlook the soft white stripe of beach and the rumbling distant ocean, grey and not very pretty.

It's wonderful. It's really wonderful, Brendon thinks, that he gets to be awake and alive on this bright morning.

He couldn't figure out how to turn the thermostat down last night so he slept in sweatpants and a green sweater of Ryan's that someone always in his bag. He undresses and grins at himself in the mirror, naked and bawdy for just a moment, before pulling on the new swim trunks he bought the day before, a fantastic pair - bright pink with palm trees and very realistic and festive depictions of buxom Hawaiian woman dancing and also off-scale many-hued tropical drinks. Brendon was thrilled when he found them and nothing Ryan might possibly have said would have made him reconsidering buying them.

They're in a suite and when Brendon goes into the common middle room Spencer is sitting there with a cup of coffee, staring blearily at some news program, some awful boring news show in the television.

"Hey," Brendon says. "Hey. What are you doing?"

"Hmm?" Spencer asks.

"Why are you up?" Brendon asks. "It's early. It's way too early for you."

Spencer shrugs. "Ryan is ..." He trails off and waves a hand in a vague circle. "He has a headache. And he said he has to write today."

Brendon laughs and grimaces. "Oh man," he says. "I was so going to say we have to go to the beach today. And mini-golf. But really, the beach, man. I was gonna make his scrawny ass come, but if he's going to be writing. He's got all the blinds drawn? And the incense? That again?"

Spencer hesitates a moment. "Yeah, again with the incense. He was on the phone with Pete last night, in the bathroom, until like, two o'clock, at least."

Brendon laughs. "Oh no," he says. "Oh no!"

Spencer rolls his eyes. "It will pass. It always passes. I'm just ... we'll just leave him alone today."

"This was supposed to be vacation!" Brendon pouts. "I can't believe he's going to work on our vacation."

Spencer shrugs and takes a sip of his coffee.

"Man," Brendon says. "Ryan sucks. And Jon sucks too. He didn't have to go back to Chicago! We haven't been on the road that long ... You know what this means? This means it's just us today, Spence. Just the two of us!" The temptation to break spontaneously into song is too great to resist and Brendon does. He starts singing even though his voice is still weak from the cold he had a few weeks ago and it's early and he doesn't know all of the words to that silly song, doesn't actually know any of them except the chorus, and has only a vague idea of the tune.

"Mmm," says Spencer. "I didn't get much sleep last night. I was thinking I'd just hang around here today, do some reading ..."

"Oh no," Brendon says. "Not you too. That is so lame, Spencer! That is lame. We're here to have fun, dude, and see the sights. You can read any time. We're having fun today!"

"Well," Spencer says. "I don't know..."

"Come on," says Brendon. "This is supposed to be vacation! Fun! Not boring sitting in hotel rooms and reading books, just like every other boring old day. We're at the beach! We need to have fun!"

Brendon is grinning kind of manically but he knows that, and it's okay because he knows he's right. "Come on!" he pleads. "Go get dressed and meet me down in the lobby, and we'll go. It'll be fun, Spence! Fun!"

Spencer rolls his eyes and laughs. "Fine," he says. "But I'm holding you responsible, Urie. This better be some fun fucking shit you've got planned today."

"Oh man," Brendon says. "Do you even doubt? It'll be great. We're here and it's warm and there's a beach and man, how could it not be fun?"

"Yeah," says Spencer, good-natured but wary. "Well, we'll see." He slips back into the darkness of the room he's sharing with Ryan.

"Fifteen minutes, Smith!" Brendon calls. "I'll see you downstairs!"

\---

The food isn't great, but the atmosphere cannot be beat. That's what Brendon really likes. He'll take a place with character over some ritzy joint any day, and if there's anything Uncle Benny's Pancake house has, it has to be character. Spencer sniffs snootily at the menu, and only orders coffee and oatmeal, but Brendon is delighted with the paper place mats shaped like happily grinning pigs dressed in aprons and chefs hats, and even more delighted at how all of the food is given a charming and thematically appropriate name. Brendon orders the 'Beach Bunny' (a short stack of golden hotcakes with fresh sliced banana and whipped cream) with glee. All up on the walls are photographs of the various lovely ladies who've been Miss America, all the way back since it started it seems like. Over the booth where Spencer and Brendon sit are Miss 1973 and Miss 1969, the former dark and beaming and very thin, the latter blond and pretty and looking a little bit like a slutty girl Brendon went to high school with. Weird.

The food comes and someone (Brendon strongly suspects the waitress) has made a smiley face on his pancakes with the whipped cream. The waitress - young, but probably older than they are - doesn't seem to recognize them but still smiles and lingers at their table a little longer than necessary. Brendon bats his eyes at her and calls her sugar and tells her the service is exemplary. Spencer is gruff and inarticulate, and merely nods.

The restaurant is filled with the most wonderful people, honestly. Families from New York and Philadelphia, and everyone is talking with that funny East Coast accent that Brendon tries to imitate and never can get quite right. The girls are all very tan and have frosted hair and flashy charm bracelets around their wrists. The men are very tan and not freshly shaved and wearing baseball jerseys or tank tops. These are very salt of the earth people, Brendon thinks. This is America, is what it is.

"Oh my god," says Spencer, as a trio of girls and an accompanying gentleman are seated in the booth behind theirs. All the girls are wearing the same terrycloth tube dress in a different pastel color, and the boy has an awe inspiring tape up, acne, and a very large stud earring in his right ear.

"I know," Brendon says solemnly. "This is awesome."

Spencer chokes on his coffee, and they finish the rest of the meal in silence, broken only when their waitress returns and Brendon tells her in all sincerity that the meal was delicious. She bats her eyes at him and Spencer clears his throat and asks for a refill on his coffee, startling her and flustering her and sending her bouncing away for a stale pot of coffee from the kitchen.

Brendon leaves her a fifteen dollar tip on a twenty four dollar bill. (How was the bill even twenty four dollars? Such things are only justifiable in resort towns.) Spencer says he's being excessive, but Brendon just smiles and shrugs. He can afford it now. Why shouldn't he?

They go to a kiosk and they get a map, and Brendon takes handfuls of pamphlets for all of the resorts and local attractions. He grabs stuff like this wherever they go and shoves it in a file folder thing Ryan bought him for the purpose of storing it. Before the file folder he just left it cluttered around the bus, like on the counters and floor and wherever, and that kind of pissed Ryan off, all that clutter. He always means to alphabetize it some day, so that the next time they're in like .... Ohio they know how to find Captain Hook's tomb and the Conception Museum and all the other awesome stuff there is out there that's just waiting for some silly boys with enough money and too much free time to come and enjoy. But yeah, alphabetizing is not really Brendon's thing, so that hasn't happened yet, but he keeps picking up the brochures, just in case.

"Oh," Spencer says. "Outlets ..."

Spencer loves to shop.

Brendon doesn't really get it.

"No, no," he says. "We can go to stores like ... anywhere. The beach! We've gotta go to the beach, Spence."

"I don't have a swimsuit with me." Spencer says.

Brendon pouts. "Why not?"

Spencer shrugs. "We're a band, not a synchronized swimming team."

"Well," Brendon says. "Let's go get you one and then we're going to the beach."

Spencer looks sulky, but his shoulder sag in a way that Brendon knows means he's given up already, so it's fine. "This isn't even a very nice beach, Brendon," he protests weakly. "We could go to Maui or something. San Lucas."

"Yeah, but we're here, aren't we? We can go shopping later!" Brendon says. "Tonight, or tomorrow ... we've got no where to go, nothing to do. It's vacation!"

"Yeah, yeah," Spencer says. "Fine. The beach." He frowns and looks a little pitiful. "I really hate sand, Brendon. Have I ever told you that? I hate sand. And saltwater."

Brendon gives him a look like he's crazy. "Dude, me too. We're going to rent chairs, towels, umbrellas, shovels and pails, everything. We are going to do this right!"

"Yeah?" Spencer asks.

"Yeah, totally," Brendon says. "We're gonna build sand castles and collect sea shells and you can bury me in the sand if you want, and if we can rent a metal detector, we're so doing that, and surfing lessons, dude. Surfing lessons!"

"Brendon, come on," Spencer interrupts. "We're not going to find anyone to give us surfing lessons in New Jersey. Do they even have waves here?"

Brendon rolls his eyes. "It's the ocean. Of course there are waves!"

"Real waves?" Spencer asks.

"Real waves? It's an ocean, Spence! What other kind are there?" Brendon retorts, agog.

Spencer just shakes his head and holds his hands up, acknowledging his defeat. "Okay," he says. "Real waves. Let's get this show on the road then, because the sight of you on a surfboard is going to be priceless."

\-----

The rental place doesn't have metal detectors, and they don't know anybody who will give Brendon surfing lessons on such short notice, but he does get some chairs and towels and an umbrella that looks like a flower when it opens up. Properly outfitted, he waits out front of the little store for Spencer, who's in the public restrooms next door changing into the board shorts he bought. He emerges blinking into the sunlight a few minutes later.

"It was filthy in there," he says, wrinkling his nose.

"Poor darling," Brendon says. "I know it's rough rubbing shoulders with the hoi polloi."

Spencer shoves him. "Fuck off, Mr. Oh I couldn't possibly fly coach!"

"That was one time!" Brendon says, shrill in protest. "One time and it was an intercontinental flight! My legs would have cramped up!"

"Yeah," Spencer says, laughing. His smile is bright. "Yeah, well we'll see next time the label tries to shaft us on transportation, we'll see how well you deal with it then."

They walk across the wide flat beach, and Spencer's all for just setting the stuff down anywhere, but Brendon wants a good spot, the perfect spot, not too far from the water but not too close, and definitely not near any dumb kids that are going to throw sand on him. Brendon would have to throw sand back and that would get him into trouble, most likely.

At last he finds a spot and he sets up the chairs and the towels and makes Spencer drive the umbrella into the ground because that is hard work and he's just thelil' old singer. Dainty as a flower.

When everything is set up to Brendon's specifications, he takes a step back and smiles broadly. "Perfect," he says.

Spencer shakes his head.

Brendon makes himself busy smearing SPF 60 over every inch of bare skin. His grandfather had to have a pre-cancerous growth removed from her cheek once and he's not taking any chances, because they say that even one severe burn increases your risk by so many percents ...

Spencer kicks off his shoes and tugs off his tee shirt, and wow.

He's really pale. That makes sense, because Spencer is not the kind of guy who walks around without a shirt on. He wears clothes like ... almost all the time, even when they're just hanging around the bus or something. That explains, at least, why Brendon's never realized how broad and round Spencer's shoulders are. And those new shorts he bought ride low on the gentle curve of his hips, not so low as to be obscene (not that Brendon has a problem with obscenity) but low enough.

Well.

Spencer knits his brow. "What?" he asks.

"Uh," Brendon says. "You better put some sunscreen on."

"Oh yeah," Spencer says. "Good idea. Thanks." He smiles. Spencer has really white, really straight teeth.

"You do my back," Brendon says. "And I'll do yours."

Spencer's hands are big and strong, which is unsurprising considering he's the drummer. Brendon jumps a little because the sunscreen is cold on his back. Spencer rubs methodically across Brendon's back and then down, not too firmly, pressing with his thumbs and the heels of his palms.

"I'm totally making you give me a massage next time my back hurts," Brendon tells him, pressing back into Spencer's hands.

Spencer rolls his eyes, and slaps Brendon on the small of his back. "All done," he says.

"Okay, turn around," says Brendon.

Spencer's got a mole on his left shoulder. Brendon squirts a line of sunscreen right down the middle of the back and rubs. Spencer's got all these muscles Brendon can't see really, but he can feel them as he rubs the sunscreen into Spencer's pale skin. Geeze.

Spencer looks back over his shoulder. "What are you doing?" he asks.

Brendon's been rubbing very small circles on either side of Spencer's spine, right where his rib cage ends. He blinks.

"Ummm," he flounders. "Full coverage! I'm just making sure you've got full coverage because you're going to be a lobster otherwise, dude. A tomato. And it's really bad for you to be out in the sun, skin cancer and all of that. Not to mention it gives you wrinkles! You don't want wrinkles, right?"

Spencer just shakes his head, sad he no longer finds this kind of behavior from Brendon strange.

"Okay," Brendon says, wiping his hands. "I think you're safe. Now we go swimming!"

"Oh no," Spencer says. "I'm waiting. It's not even that hot out yet!"

"Waiting?" Brendon pouts. "Waiting for what?"

"To get hot enough that I feel like braving the sixty four degree ocean temperatures," Spencer says, settling on his back on the towel.

"Oh," Brendon says, deflated. "Fine, but I'm making you come in later."

Sulkily, he flops into his beach chair. And waits. He flips through some of those brochures he picked up earlier, and while he's excited to learn there's anIMAX theatre in town playing 'Dinosaurs! Monsters of the Deep Past!' they don't really make for very substantial reading. Spencer lays perfectly still.

Brendon lies belly down on his beach towel. He digs a little hole in the sand with his left foot and fills up in again. It is early still, only eleven thirty, and the sun is really just warming up, but it's pretty hot out, already. Brendon is sweating. He rests his head on his arms and pouts. He'd had such high hopes for the day! The terrycloth of the towel is rough against his cheek, and he can feel sweat run down his back. He looks over at Spencer, who's lying stock still, his eyes closed peacefully. Ugh.

Brendon jumps up and accidentally (of course accidentally) kicks a spray of sand at Spencer, who immediately sits up and scowls.

"You dumb-ass," Spencer says, trying to brush the stand off his chest and belly. "I was just relaxing." The combination of sweat and suntan lotion make the sand stick to him. "I forgot how much I hate the beach."

"No," Brendon says. "No, no. You're just not doing it the right way. Let's go in the water! This laying around shit is pointless."

Spencer sighs. "Fine," he says. "But only because I have to rinse off this damn sand."

Brendon grins and starts off immediately towards water's edge. The waves crash and surge forward, leaving veils of white froth over the wet sand. A wave larger than all the rest comes rushing forward and Brendon is in water up to his ankles suddenly, and damn, it is cold. He grits his teeth. Spencer is standing a few feet back, his arms folded across his chest.

"Cold?" Spencer asks, smirking knowingly.

"It feels great," Brendon says brightly. "Refreshing!"

Spencer cocks an eyebrow skeptically. Brendon's feet feel like they've been submerged in liquid hydrogen, but he grins at Spencer and runs full speed into an oncoming wave before diving ungracefully into surf.

Spluttering, he emerges. The water is waist deep and Brendon's extremities are tingling from the cold, but it's really not so bad once you get used to it. He waves to Spencer, who's still standing on the beach.

"Come in!" Brendon bellows.

Spencer grimaces.

Brendon waves wildly.

With less enthusiasm than Brendon had mustered, Spencer wades slowly into the water, tensing when the waves break, shivering but happy, or looking happy at least. Brendon is splashing around, ducking under the water, breathless, giddy. Spencer takes a deep breath and dives in. The water is cold, cold, cold, brilliantly so at first, but they're both numb after a few minutes. Spencer's hair drips and sticks to his neck. Brendon's eyes get irritated by the salt water and he keeps blinking. The surf is considerable. Despite what Spencer says they are real waves, and big enough so that when one come surging up, there's just a split second where they have to decide whether to jump and let the momentum of the water carry them up, or dive under into the rough tumble of the current. And the current is strong, pulling them down the shore towards one of the weird long piles of greenish slimy rocks that punctuate the beach every seven or eight hundred yards. A group of boys - not all that much younger than Brendon and Spencer are, maybe only two or three years - riding on boogie boards keeps drifting out past the flags that mark where you're allowed to swim, and the lifeguard whistles at them violently, making the very sternest face, a face Brendon mocks as he whistles, until Spencer calls him a dork and pushes him under the water.

The sun is a bright white gorgeous thing, and the breeze is strong and the gulls call and wheel. Brendon steps on something sharp, and there's a pinch, and his eyes get so wide. He's sure it's a crab that's just itching to sever one of his toes, and he's not about to let that happen so he jumps on Spencer's back and wraps his legs around Spencer's waist and commands Spencer to be his chariot all while Spencer gripes that he's too heavy, tells him to get off, and then suddenly goes boneless and just drops them both into the water.

The tide comes in and there are these fucking gross clear blobby jellyfish floating everywhere, and Spencer gets really skeeved out and thinks he's going to get stung by one and die, even though Brendon reassures him that the poisonous kind are only like ... in Australia. Brendon doesn't know that for sure but to prove his point he picks up one of the blobby jellyfish and tosses it from hand to hand, and it's wet and cold and strangely grainy, and it has an awful sour smell, but he's right, it doesn't sting, and finally he doesn't know what else to do with it so he lobs it at Spencer, laughing.

It hit Spencer in the chest, sticks for a moment, before sliding down his side and back into the water. Spencer stares down at the spot where it struck, aghast. Retaliation is necessary, and Spencer is a patient man, so he waits until Brendon is distracted by some buxom girls in bikinis who are posing by the water's edge, find a particularly decrepit blob of jellyfish and seaweed, scoops it up, and grinds it down into Brendon's hair.

Brendon gags and gags and ducks under the water to try to rinse the goo out of his hair.

"If the stinger juice runs down into my eyes and I go blind, you have to take care of me!" he tells Spencer, angry but laughing. "I'll be your burden!"

Spencer is in hysterics at the look on Brendon's face, wide eyes and flared nostrils.

Brendon sees some kids body surfing, and decides he has to try. All it involves is basically pushing off the sandy bottom as a wave rolls past and letting the wave carry you to the beach, but it's a lot harder than it looks, especially because as the tide comes in the waves have gotten bigger and bigger. When they break, there's a tremendous boom like a distant clap of thunder. Brendon's getting the hang of it though, and it's pretty fun, gliding through the water like that, at least until he misjudges something - speed or strength or distance, it's not like it's a precise science - and he feels the undertow suck him in. Suddenly he's spinning, head over heels, pushed by the water, pounded down onto the wet sand head first. There's a bright white light behind his eyes for a second, and his mouth is full of sand and briny water. He coughs, staggers to his feet. He scraped his forearm on something - hopefully just a shell or something and not a rusty can or hypodermic needle or whatever other kind of shit there is in this water - and there's a thin ribbon of bright red blood running down to his elbow. He spits up way too much water, and his chest feels hollow.

"Brendon?"

Spencer is kneeling next to him, dripping wet, face solemn. "You okay?"

Brendon grins weakly. "Yeah," he says. "Think so."

Spencer makes a peace sign. "How many fingers am I hold up?"

Brendon squints. "Eight?" he asks, uncertain.

Spencer looks horrified, and Brendon laughs.

"I'm just kidding," he says. "I'm fine, dude."

"Yeah?" Spencer sounds wary. "You got pretty roughed up ... Maybe we should get the doctor at the hotel to look at you."

"No," Brendon says. "No way am I going to the doctor. Let's just ... take a break."

Spencer looks like he has misgivings, but he agrees that the doctor can wait. They trudge back up to the their umbrella. Spencer shakes the sand off their towels and spreads them out while Brendon drinks long from a bottle of lukewarm spring water.

Spencer lays down on his towel. Brendon is still seeing star bursts of brilliant light if he turns his head too quickly, but he figures it will past. He hit his head way harder that time a choreographer for some thing they were doing tried to teach him how to do front walkovers, and he was fine then.

Putting his water back in his bag, he applies a fresh layer of sunscreen. He looks at Spencer, supine and easy in sleep. He fusses with his towel, smoothing it out. He tugs it just a bit closer to Spencer's towel ... just a bit closer, and then a bit more, until they're right next to each other.

Brendon smiles. He lies face down and closes his eyes, and he doesn't expect to fall asleep, but the water and the sun and the salt air have tired him more than he realizes. He moves a little closer to Spencer, presses up against his side. Spencer shifts sleepily, but he doesn't pull away, and before Brendon can even really think about it, really think about anything other than the warm sun on his back and Spencer, warm and solid beside him, everything gets full and slow and the breeze washes over them and the gulls caw raucous over head, and even the thrilled screaming of children by the water is soft and lovely and distant as Brendon falls asleep.

\-----

When they wake up, they're very warm. Brendon's arm is flung lazily over Spencer's chest. Brendon's nose is pressed into Spencer's shoulder. Spencer's hair, dried stiff and salty, is tickling his face. Spencer blinks sleepily.

"Mmm," he says, looking over. "Urie, are you groping me?"

"Not really," he says. He pauses, reconsiders. "A little, maybe."

Spencer snorts. "You hit your head harder than I thought." He shakes his head and turns over, but he doesn't pull away.

Brendon snuggles closer and presses his mouth against the back of Spencer's neck, not a kiss, but not ... not, either.

"It's okay, right?" he whispers.

"Yeah," Spencer says, without moving. "Yeah, it's okay."

Brendon smiles and goes lax. The sun is hight and bright, the surf is crashing on the distant shore, and every bad thing is obliterated by the heat and the blue-white sky and the warm body beside him.

"Awesome," says Brendon.


End file.
